It's a Big Windup, and a Fine Line
by Haelwyn
Summary: Where would you draw the line... between you and I? Very mild Abe/Mihashi, Hanai/Tajima, Izumi/Mizutani
1. Chapter 1

**A Fine Line**

OMG My first Oofuri fanfic. I must be going nuts. Let's see if I can't contribute a little bit into this wonderful wonderful fan-circle. This fic is slightly based on the lyrics of the second opening song, Seishun Line by Ikimonogakari, a wonderful wonderful band which I love very much because there is a harmonica.

Big Windup wonderfully created by Asa Higuchi, may the gods of baseball bless her soul.

This fic is a narration from Mihashi's point of view, as though he is writing the song Seishun Line, though the lyrics are a bit jumbled up.

~oAo~

_We're now running…_

Because Momo-kan ordered us to run a few kilometers after practice today, as usual. "One! Two! One! Two!" goes the team. Everyone's voices are so loud. I want to shout for the team, too. "One! Two! One! Two!" and I join in.

We cross the footbridge on the way back to the school, and I falter to watch as the light plays colorful hues on the river. There was a river here? I don't remember it. I look up to the sky and see the magnificence that was playfully distorted in the water. The clouds are so beautiful today. I hold my hand up to the sky; the clouds are so wispy and low, it feels I could hold them, and shape them, maybe catch them, and pitch them.

I wonder where you'd draw the line between the red and orange. No, it's orange and violet now.

But there's something else that draws my attention more.

Abe-kun is the one running beside me. I can hear him breathing; h-his lungs are incredible! I'm already panting, and he's hardly broken a sweat. But just to be sure, I turn my head to look at him, to check if he really isn't sweating at all.

He turns his head towards me as well and I shudder. My face freezes up, and I know it's probably making that funny face everybody keeps teasing me about.

"What is it, Mihashi?" he asks in his deep, calm voice.

"W-," I blurt out. The words are there, just not coming out. I can't help but feel flustered around him. "W-w-w-we-," I try to continue, and I can't help if I start skipping along clumsily.

I can almost visibly see Abe-kun's patience run out, as it has so many times before, usually when he's talking to me… or rather, when I'm stuttering at him. "Spit it out already," he says, making an obvious and conscious effort to keep from shouting. I've noticed it, he hasn't been shouting at me recently; I like that he's not shouting at me anymore.

"We-," I continue, slightly heartened by this thought. "We're running!" I say to Abe.

"Of course we're running, dimwit!" he hisses, decidedly loudly for a whisper, and I see the anger and irritation lacking in his voice, showing in his eyes. Izumi and Mizutani, the ones running in front of us, glance backwards.

And then I-, I-, I can't help fidgeting, my run fading to a clumsy skip, to a sort of wobbling series of uncoordinated forward movements.

But then Abe pats me on the back. To straighten my stance or to push me forward, I don't know. But the brief contact leaves my skin warm, and sends a shiver up my spine. I stop fidgeting, get back into the rhythm of the run, and snap back to reality.

Everyone else is far ahead, though I guess spacing out like that, I shouldn't be surprised.

I hear Abe-kun "tsk" beside me as he takes my hand and starts running faster. Faster. Like the beat of my heart.

I wonder, Abe-kun, where you would draw the line between you and I.

_We're running, Abe-kun, we're running. On this glittering road, we're running._

_As you hold my hand tightly, we run._

~oAo~

Alright, it's not very long, and I know first-person drabbles aren't the most popular thing; but I just love the songs of Oofuri so much. I may edit this in the future, to make it sound nicer. Reviews are loved, and encourage me to write more chapters, and hopefully better ones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Time tick-tocks**

((OMG, a second chapter to my Oofuri fic. I'm really going nuts. Anyway, this is months after I re-watched the series, so I wonder how accurate I can still be. Reviews are loved, and will spur the birth of more chapters, and more pairings. BTW, this is after season 2 and everything, few spoilers maybe.))

It's Hanai's POV this time!

~oAo~

_Tick-tick, it's not stopping._

"One! Two! One! Two! One! Two!" I shout to myself, in my head. An late-night jog wouldn't hurt. Much.

Everyone's asleep in their rooms at the camp building. We're all exhausted from the special training Momo-kan's been giving us.

Momo-kan. I used to find the nickname funny, but I guess we all just got used to it. It was Tajima who started calling her that, going around with watermelons under his shirt and shouting "Momo-kan!" in the baseball practice field. Can't help but laugh. Who wouldn't laugh at a face like that?

I feel my heart suddenly beating faster. How long have I been running? Half an hour already, according to my watch. It's about time to head back, I guess. I must be tired. I'll just rest for a while then…

No, the captain can't be tired. The captain should always be strong, for the team. Even if I'm not the most talented… No! I shake my head fervently, as if there were anyone around to see. But still. There's always room for improvement.

Everyone's been improving so fast lately. I'm proud of my team. That genius Abe and talented Mihashi, and the dependable Izumi, Sakaeguchi, Oki, Suyama, quiet Nishihiro, and that bum Mizutani, and then there's all-around Tajima…

Is my heart still beating fast?

_Nor do I want it to slow down._

Maybe I'm overdoing it. I'll just take a rest here then. It feels good to lie on the grass and gaze up at the stars every once in a while, without any worries. The stars look down on me. I wonder what it feels like to be one of them.

But imagine. All we did for that summer. I still remember what it felt to be crushed in defeat. Poor Nishihiro took it the hardest. But we're training harder now. To be stronger, and stronger. To learn more plays, to perfect our skills, and to master our positions.

Momo-kan was always thinking of ways to improve the team. Such as getting Tajima to play catcher more often. That idiot had to start learning how to use his head when playing baseball. And getting me to play pitcher sometimes. Though Tajima and I would never match the precision of Mihashi and Abe's Ace battery, we already agreed, based on that final game, that we needed to train more than one pitcher and more than one catcher.

Breathe in, breathe out. Ask my beating heart to go back to normal.

Next year, I'm sure more students would join the team. After all, didn't we just do great as a starting baseball team? Beating the defending champions, I'm sure they were impressed by that. If more people join, we'll have more talent, and more players to choose from, and more people to train, and… and…

Who is that person walking towards me?

"Ooy, Hanai!" a familiarly bubbly voice calls out through the dimly-lit haze of the night. I can almost hear the freckles in his voice. "I finally found you."

"Ta-Tajima," I sit up and wave back. Didn't expect anyone to come out at this time of night. "What are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you, of course," he says, beaming. Cheerful Tajima, smiling Tajima, half of my summer memories are of his bright smiling face, which I saw nearly everyday. "Though I would ask you what you're doing here in the first place."

"Nothing," I say, taking a deep breath. "Just a quick jog."

"Wow, you look tired," he comments, staring straight at me. "You're still panting."

"Am not," I look away.

"Dude, you need some rest," he says, lying down next to me. "Heck, I need some rest, too. It took some jogging to get all the way out here, too. I don't have long legs like you do."

What does he expect me to reply to that?

"Here, you need to relax, man," still lying down, he reaches for my hand and feels for my pulse. "Yeah, you really need to relax."

What does he expect me to respond to that?

"Follow my lead. Inhale… Exhale… Inhale… Exhale," he says, repetitively.

Ugh, I think to myself. Did Momo-kan put him up to this? Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

Almost instantly, I feel myself relaxed. Calm. At peace with the world. And with the person lying next to me and holding my hand.

And the world is silent for a long, long moment.

_Let it grow hot._

Wait.

"Tajima?" I call out as the moment grows long.

He lets out a loud snore. I try to hold in a snort. But his hand stays in mine. And I let the moment grow longer.

_As hot as it can get._


	3. Chapter 3

(Yay third chapter! IzuMizu this time around! I've run out of pairings so there might not be a next chapter OAO. Hehe, review please and I might just conjure up another chapter somehow. :D)

~oAo~

_On that summer day with a blue sky, sweat on the back of my neck._

"Hah, hah," I can't take any more of this, I keep saying to myself, and it's probably true this time.

_The many complaints, hesitations and hopes I spat out._

I find myself one moment looking at a baseball flying towards me, and the next staring up dumbly at a blue sky. And a few clouds. There's a white one shaped like a turtle. And there's a dark one that looks like Izumi. And another that looks like Hanai. Oh, it started talking. It even sounds like Hanai. Wait a minute, what?

"Sensei, Mizutani's collapsed on the field!" it started shouting, before running off in some direction. I guess it's not a cloud, then.

"Idiot Mizutani, why didn't you say that you weren't feeling well?" the Izumi cloud that I guess isn't really a cloud starting talking to me, too.

"Izumi! Bring him over here to the dugout! Tajima, go get a towel from the locker room!" Momokan's shouting somewhere. I heard the Izumi-cloud shout "Yes Ma'am!" back at her.

I only vaguely feel the sensation of being held close by Izumi. Then everything goes black again.

-.-.-

I wake up on a bench in the dugout. I look up and see Izumi-cloud hovering over my face.

"Izumi-cloud," escapes my lips.

"Eh? What are you going on about, Mizu-idiot?" he says curtly, in a calm voice.

Then I sit up bolt upright. Have I been lying in this guy's lap? The thought makes me dizzy. It makes me want to lie down again. But-

"Oy, oy, don't sit up so suddenly. You'll black out again," he calls, calmly pulling me down gently again. The gesture is so foreign, so strange, so weird, that it feels like a dream.

"I blacked out? Damn. That's so lame."

"Yeah, even for you, it's pretty darn lame," he says, and he's fanning me with a paper fan. And he's calling me lame.

"At least I'm not the one with the paper fan."

"At least I'm not the one with his head in another guy's lap."

I sit bolt upright again.

"I said stop doing that! You'll lose the blood in your head," he says, reaching forward to pull me down again.

"No, no, I'm fine now," I say hurriedly. I put my hands to my face, to see if I still have blood in it. Apparently I do, since it's getting all warm and flushed.

"Oh, alright then. I'll go back to the others now," Izumi says, slowly getting up.

"Wait," I call out, grabbing his hand as he's about to leave me.

"Hm? What is it, Mizu-idiot?"

"S-stay a bit longer," I say, and I can hardly look at him. All I know is I want him near me… for now. In case I, you know, black out again.

"How are you feeling now?"

The question gets to me. For some reason, it took me a while to answer.

"Like a loser," I suddenly blurt out. Where did that come from? "I feel like such an idiot, Izumi."

"Huh?"

"I'll wait for sunrise, but I hate tomorrow. I'll talk to my friends, but I don't like people," I suddenly say. I think they were lyrics to the song I used to like, but it doesn't move me anymore. "It's no one's fault, probably not mine either."

"What are you talking about, Mizutani?" Izumi moves in and sits down beside me.

"I don't know, maybe I really can't take any more," I say, and my face feels warmer than ever. My eyes feel warm, and they feel wet. Am I crying? My body's acting weird now. "I keep saying that to myself, 'I can't catch any more flyballs,' 'I can't practice any more swings,' just so I can surprise myself when I actually do it. Isn't that dumb? Maybe next year we'll get more members and I won't have to hang out here anymore."

_The many complaints, hesitations and hopes I spat out._

"What's gotten into you, Mizutani? Are you running a fever?," Izumi says, and I feel his hand on my forehead. It's a rough hand; it's filthy and I know his fingernails, like mine, are covered in dirt; but it's a familiar hand, and it's cool on my burning head and face. "Whoops, it looks like you really are sick.

"But you know," Izumi said, suddenly, his voice still as calm as ever. "When people are sick, other people help them, you know? Doctors give them medicine, and help them get better. Not make them feel worse."

"What are you saying now?" I ask him. He's the one not making sense now.

"None of us here think badly of you, Mizutani," he says, and his hands still on my forehead, and his face is right in front of mine. "We're all here to make each other better, right?"

Ba-thump.

_I don't care how many times I have to look up at the sky to check _

_In order not to lose the sight of you walking forward_


End file.
